SALT LAKE CITY — The magic number is six.
Get to six wins — win half your games — and you’re in the postseason as a Division I collegiate football program. It’s a low bench mark, but one the NCAA employs in its bowl designations.
Conference play, which is generally the last eight or nine games of the season, is where everything matters for a team. But the first few games — mostly made up of games against nonconference opponents — dictates more about whether a team will make it to the postseason than anything else.
The first six games of the season set the tone for the last six and are more influential than any other part of the schedule based on season record data of all football bowl subdivision teams dating back to 2008.